Fracture

Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins, The Silence of the Lambs) is a successful engineer who recently discovers his wife’s infidelity. He becomes aware that she has been sleeping with a police detective, which pushes Ted to the point of shooting his wife. Initially he confesses to the crime, and it looks to be an easy win for rising star district attorney Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling, The Notebook). This is of course until Ted redacts his confession and engages in a battle of wits with Beachum. After enticing the arresting officer and adulterer into attacking him in the courtroom Ted’s case begins to look optimistic. Eventually he is acquitted of his charges and Beachum becomes obsessed with the case knowing that Ted is guilty. He literally puts his career on the line to find out what happened and even tries speaking with Ted’s comatose wife.

Fracture is one of those movies that I really wanted to like, but I couldn’t. The story wasn’t very intriguing and it just seemed to drag on and on with no real closure. As well, for a movie claiming to be suspenseful I can’t even recall one time where I was holding my breath. But despite the film having what I thought was a pretty weak script, the acting all around was quite impressive. In each performance he makes Ryan Gosling gets better and better, I think this Canadian native has quite a bright future ahead. I don’t think I need to mention that Anthony Hopkins played a terrific role as well, and they really paired up nicely. But great acting couldn’t save Fracture which was ultimately to stale. Not to say it was a complete waste of time either, this movie is worth checking out once but I couldn’t recommend it being worth a purchase.

Video

Presented in 2.35:1 Widescreen Fracture shows up on DVD with some surprising looking results. The film had a very dark look about it. Most of the scenes take place at night or in dimly lit interiors, but the transfer shows no noticeable faults under these conditions. Grain was no where to be seen and there was no apparent speckling or artifacts. As for colors, well they look simply great. Flesh tones along with other colors looked realistic and never dull or washed out. Detail, although not the sharpest, still are visible, rarely ever soft looking. In short Fracture really looks great, even more so when you consider some of the poor lighting conditions. Until Fracture is release on a HD medium this DVD will easily tide over fans of the movie.

Audio

Equipped with a 5.1 Dolby Digital track in both the English and French languages, New Line Cinema has included an effective sounding track with Fracture. The well written dialogue is presented clearly at all times during the film and meshes well with the subtle, but effective soundtrack. The track sounds good, but as expected it is front heavy and usage of bass and rear channels usually comes from the music track. For a thriller the track does everything right to create the additional suspense need in these movies.

Special Features

Unfortunately New Line has only included a deleted scenes package with this release. Although they total over 30 minutes, it still would have been nice to see a making of feature.

• Deleted/Alternative Scenes – We are given 8 Deleted which total 33 minutes. Among the deleted scenes are two alternative endings. The alternative endings were some what of a disappointment, as they really didn’t provide a new outcome but rather some additional footage.
• Trailers

Final Thoughts

While this movie had some very impressive acting, the movie itself was nothing special and definitely not worth the purchase. But for those of you out there who can’t get enough of Fracture you will be happy to know that the audio and video presentations are quite nice. The deleted scenes will be enjoyed by fans, but they will also leave you wanting more.